


Second Born, Second Place

by TehRaincoat



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 15:46:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16835668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TehRaincoat/pseuds/TehRaincoat
Summary: Azula finds herself uncertain of her place, in the wake of Zuko's banishment, and her's right along with him.





	Second Born, Second Place

**Author's Note:**

> I think a lot of these what-ifs resulted in some of my best drabbles, tbh
> 
> "What if Ozai sent Azula with Iroh and Zuko?"

She feels loose around the edges, like she’s an unspooled length of thread.

Her fellow group of travellers have separated themselves from her, watching warily from afar around the warmth of the fire. Uncle and Zuko have been in close council all evening. Azula has attempted to ignore them for the most part, staring out across the natural bay where they’ve chosen to make camp.

Normally she doesn’t feel the cold. Her bending is its own sheet of warmth when she needs it to be, her natural ability to regulate her body heat a standard expectation of all fire benders. But she feels it now, and she shivers as another wind whips off of the water and tousles her hair. The dark strands tickle at her nose and face. She scrapes them away.

Behind her the grass hisses with the rhymthic passage of someone’s feet. By the gait, Azula can guess that it is Zuko who approaches. With him comes the scent of the evening meal, and a heavier thud absorbed by the turf as he settles himself next to her overlooking the bay, leaning back comfortably. It’s too casual, considering how he and Uncle have been treating her attempts at both their step mother and their half brother’s lives.

Azula looks at him sidelong.

“Dinner,” he announces quietly, handing her bowl out to her with little ceremony. Azula turns to stare at its contents for a moment before finally giving in and accepting the offer. She tips the stew toward her tongue, lips pressed to the smooth grain of the wooden bowl.

It’s bland this time. They’re running out of supplies again, and there’s very little to do about it until they can go to another town and buy something new. It’s getting more and more difficult to do so the further into Fire Nation territory they go. Especially after the eclipse.

Silence stretches out between them almost comfortably for a time, and Azula allows herself to grow at least somewhat complacent. Everything always looks better with food in one’s belly.

Zuko sits up slowly, curled forward with his elbows resting against his knees.

“Azula…Why’d you do it?”

She swallows her last mouthful of stew ponderously in response, the food seeming to stick to her tongue as the question she’s almost dreaded is posed by her brother. Setting the bowl aside, both of her hands pass over her face, carding into the tangled mess of her hair and catching on knots.

“They took everything from me,” she answers truthfully, for once. “When father sent me with you and uncle, I reasoned that it was a show of trust. He _trusted_ me to do what was necessary if either of you stepped out of line. If we actually found the Avatar…I never wanted to admit that he did it to get rid of me too.”

She still doesn’t understand his reasons. Why should he have wanted her gone? She is perfect. She’s a lethal tool of war, who doesn’t know anything else. She’s precise and deadly. She’s what he has groomed her to be her entire life, and yet he has so easily cast her aside. As though none of it has ever mattered to him.

As though he hadn’t told her every day that she was special. That she was the one he wanted to succeed him.

As though he had not isolated her simply because he’d felt like doing so.

“Our brother is an innocent baby, Azula.”

“He’s competition. He will be competition for the rest of our lives, even when we depose father… _If_ we can even depose him.” She is becoming less and less convinced that this young Avatar will be able to do his duty.

He’s too soft.

“If we cannot gain control of him and that woman then the throne will be under constant threat the rest of our lives. Getting rid of him was the most logical step on the day of black sun if I wanted my place in line for the throne back.”

Another silence grows pregnant between them, and then a puff of breath escapes Zuko’s lips.

“….Azula exactly what do you think is gonna happen after we defeat father?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…What happens next for you? What are you expecting?” 

She turns fully to look at her brother now, amber eyes searching his stoney expression in the moonlight reflected off of the water. What he’s going to say next has already occurred to her, and she’s still not certain exactly how she feels about it.

“Azula, you know that even…Even if we win…you’re not going to be the one sitting on the throne, right?”

Her own expression turns smooth as ocean-worn stone.

“You won’t be the Fire Lord,” he tries again. Azula’s lips remain clamped closed as she continues to stare at him long and hard.

“So what you’re saying,” she finally answers, “is that you will not step aside.”

“ _I_ am the rightful heir. I am the oldest. It’s what Uncle has been preparing me for all of these years, even while I was searching for Aang. Even while you still believed that you were father’s watchdog and not also disposable to him. I know you’re smart enough that I don’t have to spell this out for you.”

Azula turns her face away from him, and catches motion in the corner of her eye as Zuko leans forward to maintain vision of her expression.

“I am the one that everyone is expecting to pass the throne to when father has been removed.”

Azula’s hands curl around wads of long, cool, grass.

“Oh Zuzu, I know that you truly believe that,” she drawls then.

“I do,” he agrees, unswayed.

“You’re not fit to rule,” she purrs, voice like honey. Azula turns on him again, leaning in close, her eyes narrowed. “Father never taught you a damn thing because he knew that you wouldn’t sit on the throne after him. I may have been cast aside for his new heir, but at least I had his attention for some of our lives.”

Zuko’s face pales, brow drawing low, but then he huffs out what she assumes must have been the beginnings of his anger and shakes his head, unwilling to be her victim today.

“At least I have been _useful_ to him,” she prods again.

“You’re his daughter,” Zuko answers with steel in his voice, “you shouldn’t have to be _useful_ to him to have his love and attention. And neither should I.”

Unnoticed by her until now, Azula’s chest has tightened, hard as though there is a ball at the center of it. Zuko’s words hit a nerve she hasn’t known to ever exist in her. Her eyes sting.

Zuko’s warm palm presses to the back of her neck, drawing her in as he skootches close and turns her toward his shoulder. The breadth of it muffles the first hiccuping little sob that escapes her throat unbidden. His grip tightens on the nape of her neck, oddly comforting. Azula draws closer, her own shoulders shaking.

This is not the end, she promises herself. She is not to take second place to Zuko.

His free arm has come around her back, and Zuko presses his lips to her temple. His breath is warm against her skin as he holds her.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he tells her softly. “I promise, you’ll be alright. I won’t cast you out like dad did. You’re my little sister, okay?”

She nods. For now, Azula allows herself the small comfort of her brother’s embrace.

If only to leave him complacent.


End file.
